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The Witcher 2: Performance Thread [Enhanced Edition Patch - New content & 100+ fixes]

So I was playing at 2560x1440 on my iMac but I've now hooked up my TV to my iMac, so I'm down to 1920x1080. I used the ini tweaking guide (used the lowest one) back when I was using the higher res to try and get 30FPS. Now that I'm at 1080p these same settings are giving me 60FPS but with drops into the low 50's, is there any way to get a locked 30FPS instead and I'll increase the settings?

Should I use the ini tweaking guide (is it outdated now with the 2.0 patch) or just use the launcher settings?
 

Tomodachi

Member
Any way I can remove this ugly effect? Look at Geralt's face and at shadows' borders.

fp86kp.jpg


I think the problem might be shadows, since the same effect is all over the place (I don't know how to define it, it's like a grain or something, also it's not compression for the jpeg, I used the highest quality possible, it looks exactly like this ingame).

These are my settings:

15o9zip.jpg


Basically ultra without ubersampling nor bloom. I have a Geforce 560 Ti with the latest (stable) drivers.

Sorry it this has already been asked but it's along thread and I'm trying to avoid any spoiler :p
 

Wallach

Member
It's a limitation of the RED engine. The only way I've heard of people mitigating the shadow dithering was enabling Ubersampling, which is pretty much out of the question on a single 560 Ti.
 

Tomodachi

Member
Thanks guys. My drivers should not be doing anything funny, they were on customized but each setting was letting the application decide. For extra caution I selected the general "let the application decide" mode anyway.

I'll try tinkering with ubersampling, I enabled it once and it wasn't *that* bad, maybe removing antialiasing and scaling down textures should make it playable at 30fps in most situations.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
witcher2%202011-09-05%2015-24-55-34.jpg


Something is definitely wrong with that shot, messed up shadows generally look like the above shot for me, sometimes with a tiny tiny bit more of a cross-hatching effect.
 
Shadows behave differently on different cards for some reason. On my HD4890 I hardly noticed it, on my new HD6870 they look as ugly as Tomodachi shot.
 

Tomodachi

Member
k9gnn.jpg


With ubersampling enabled, antialiasing disabled. Better, but shadow borders are still visibly grainy. It's also 20-25fps, I don't think I can't let this turned on :(
 

Chinner

Banned
shamefully the shadows are witcher 2's biggest weakness. apparently they vary from gpu, so you can either put up with it or hope cdpr fix them in a future update.
 

Tomodachi

Member
Ouch. Thanks again guys, I'll try to stand under trees as little as possible then :)
Shadows cast by other objects than trees seem to be less grainy, as far as I can tell. I'll live with it.
 

Smokey

Member
I just want to say...I hooked up my Nvidia 3D vision kit and played The Witcher 2 and

hollllyy crap

So. good. I'm blown away by how this game looks in 3d. I'm running 2 3GB 580s in SLI, so I'm getting about 55-60fps during gameplay. No slowdown, just an amazing looking game. DAT depth. It pops out of the screen without "popping out of the screen" if that makes sense.

Surely someone else has played this in 3D and can vouch for how awesome it looks.
 
I finally started this game last night. It's the reason I spent $1400 on a brand new PC.

Playing with settings maxed, uber sampling off, and pulling about 45-50 FPS.

This game.....bah gawd....Not even through the prologue and it might be my GOTY.
 

Aurarian

Member
No good mods for this game? Like better textures. I've installed one of the inventory mods because I was already over the limit by the time I got on the boat. So dumb that there is no storage either.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Aurarian said:
So dumb that there is no storage either.
There has been storage since a recent patch. First one is in Flotsam's tavern thing, downstairs where the fighting is done. If you're already over the limit before that, you're holding on to a ton of heavy armor and weapons that you shouldn't, outside having OCD and wanting to get and sell everything to gain every possible penny... Like me.
 

Red

Member
Aurarian said:
No good mods for this game? Like better textures. I've installed one of the inventory mods because I was already over the limit by the time I got on the boat. So dumb that there is no storage either.
This is the one game I would've never expected someone seeking a better texture mod for.
 

Aurarian

Member
Alextended said:
There has been storage since a recent patch. First one is in Flotsam's tavern thing, downstairs where the fighting is done. If you're already over the limit before that, you're holding on to a ton of heavy armor and weapons that you shouldn't, outside having OCD and wanting to get and sell everything to gain every possible penny... Like me.
Really? Did not know they added that. I'm exactly like you in that I pick up everything I see on the ground and do multiple sweeps with the medallion in case I missed something.

Crunched said:
This is the one game I would've never expected someone seeking a better texture mod for.

I meant as an example(albeit a very bad one).
 

Tomodachi

Member
Any good mod replacing the inventory ui or that enables seeing what the hell I'm equipping while I browse wares and stuff? Nothing too drastic, I don't like that kind of mods, but something more functional would be welcome.
 
Wallach said:
It's a limitation of the RED engine. The only way I've heard of people mitigating the shadow dithering was enabling Ubersampling, which is pretty much out of the question on a single 560 Ti.

It's not usually not nearly that severe, even without ubersampling. Or at least it isn't on my 570SE

Edit:

Tomodachi said:
Basically ultra without ubersampling nor bloom. I have a Geforce 560 Ti with the latest (stable) drivers.

Sorry it this has already been asked but it's along thread and I'm trying to avoid any spoiler :p

Maybe try the latest beta drivers? I don't actually know if it'll help but it's worth a shot. I'm on the Battlefield 3 drivers and the shadows look fine. Some minor hatching here and there, but mostly fine.

8B20F19FE48D4F2BDD24BE2311CCFFF152D39561
 

Dries

Member
Kind of receiving micro-stutters while playing. Is there a fix? I've got a fps limiter and that helped quite a bit, but I get the feeling it could be smoother.
 

Aurarian

Member
Question about fps limiter. It doesn't seem to work correctly. I can't see an in game display of my fps even though the option is turned on. Has anyone else had this problem?
 

Jomjom

Banned
Smokey said:
I just want to say...I hooked up my Nvidia 3D vision kit and played The Witcher 2 and

hollllyy crap

So. good. I'm blown away by how this game looks in 3d. I'm running 2 3GB 580s in SLI, so I'm getting about 55-60fps during gameplay. No slowdown, just an amazing looking game. DAT depth. It pops out of the screen without "popping out of the screen" if that makes sense.

Surely someone else has played this in 3D and can vouch for how awesome it looks.

Yup! I have played this on Nvidia 3D Vision as well and it's simply amazing!
 

Kyaw

Member
Aurarian said:
Question about fps limiter. It doesn't seem to work correctly. I can't see an in game display of my fps even though the option is turned on. Has anyone else had this problem?

Which FPS limiter are you using?

Use Dxtory.

Go to the tab with '69' monitor and uncheck everything.

Then go to 'processor/chip' tab and check limit video FPS and type in your desired FPS limit.

Download from here: http://dxtory.com/v2-download-en.html

Use FRAPS to show FPS counter in-game.
 

Aurarian

Member
Kyaw said:
Which FPS limiter are you using?

Use Dxtory.

Go to the tab with '69' monitor and uncheck everything.

Then go to 'processor/chip' tab and check limit video FPS and type in your desired FPS limit.

Download from here: http://dxtory.com/v2-download-en.html

Use FRAPS to show FPS counter in-game.


I've tried Dxtory, but it likes to stop limiting the FPS when I alt+tab out. What is the point of unchecking everything in the 69 tab? The way I have it set up is just limited to 30 FPS and that's about it.
 

Andrea23

Member
Wallach said:
It's a limitation of the RED engine. The only way I've heard of people mitigating the shadow dithering was enabling Ubersampling, which is pretty much out of the question on a single 560 Ti.

This is not true.

I do not recommend it but, if someone really wants to eliminate the artifacts from the shadows, it's possible to edit this line of the user.ini, from 1 to 0:

AllowSharpen = 0

The problem is that without the sharpen, the MLAA devours a lot of detail (it's like to play with an upscaled setup... : D). The choice is yours : ).
 

Tomodachi

Member
Kyaw said:
Which FPS limiter are you using?

Use Dxtory.

Go to the tab with '69' monitor and uncheck everything.

Then go to 'processor/chip' tab and check limit video FPS and type in your desired FPS limit.

Download from here: http://dxtory.com/v2-download-en.html

Use FRAPS to show FPS counter in-game.
Why disable the overlay? Dxtory can show the counter too (I even like it better than FRAPS, you can set it in 8 different positions and it has a better color) and take screenshots, no need to install another program.

@Aurarian: are you sure Dxtory stops limiting after minimizing the game? Are you using the latest version? I might not have noticed since I use it from just a little while but I think I would have since TW2 tends to be very unstable.


Andrea23 said:
This is not true.

I do not recommend it but, if someone really wants to eliminate the artifacts from the shadows, it's possible to edit this line of the user.ini, from 1 to 0:

AllowSharpen = 0

The problem is that without the sharpen, the MLAA devours a lot of detail (it's like to play with an upscaled setup... : D). The choice is yours : ).

I just tried it, you're right, with sharpen off shadows' edges are somewhat less grainy. Then again the game looks a bit washed out. It would not be a big deal though, some objects look more realistic even, but I guess it's too late cause my eye already adjusted to sharpen being on. Maybe I will post a few pics tomorrow, when I get to a place with more trees.
 

zkylon

zkylewd
Aurarian said:
No good mods for this game? Like better textures. I've installed one of the inventory mods because I was already over the limit by the time I got on the boat. So dumb that there is no storage either.
There's a Nexus site dedicated to them: www.witchernexus.com

Back when the game was released, i installed Panel Tweak (for junk and sorting) and Better Combat (for nerfing Quen). I think CDPR rendered them obsolete with patches, but i think those are the noteworthy mods.
 

Aurarian

Member
Tomodachi said:
Why disable the overlay? Dxtory can show the counter too (I even like it better than FRAPS, you can set it in 8 different positions and it has a better color) and take screenshots, no need to install another program.

@Aurarian: are you sure Dxtory stops limiting after minimizing the game? Are you using the latest version? I might not have noticed since I use it from just a little while but I think I would have since TW2 tends to be very unstable.




I just tried it, you're right, with sharpen off shadows' edges are somewhat less grainy. Then again the game looks a bit washed out. It would not be a big deal though, some objects look more realistic even, but I guess it's too late cause my eye already adjusted to sharpen being on. Maybe I will post a few pics tomorrow, when I get to a place with more trees.

I alt-tabbed twice a couple of minutes ago and it stopped. I have no clue why and I downloaded it very recently(a couple of days). There hasn't been an update so I'm not sure what's causing it.

Maybe I should try having it windowed?
 

Binabik15

Member
I just installed my retail copy on my brother´s pc and it downloaded a 132 MB patch, that wasn´t 2.0, was it? How/where to get it? Can I use my cd key in Steam and activate it on Steam (without having to download the whole thing)?

Is Crossfire working properly or should I still use the Dirt 2 profile from Radeon Pro?

Sorry, I haven´t kept up with this game at all, I played 1.0 on my own pc back when it was released.
 

Kyaw

Member
Tomodachi said:
Why disable the overlay? Dxtory can show the counter too (I even like it better than FRAPS, you can set it in 8 different positions and it has a better color) and take screenshots, no need to install another program.

I prefer FRAPS and have been using it for a long time.
 

Aurarian

Member
I notice a lot of stuttering(don't know if that's the right word for it) when I have DXtory enabled. Like I'll be going around town and then it'll drop a couple of frames with the autosave icon in the background even though it's not autosaving. Sometimes, it'll go down to 17-18 before it comes back to 30 and it does this constantly in the same area I'm in. I was hoping for consistency but that doesn't look likely even though I know my machine can handle ultra spec @30FPS minus Motion blur/Cinematic DOF. When I use MSI afterburner, It's mostly hovering at 30-45(outside) and 50-60(inside). I rarely see it drop below 30 unless it's a cutscene but it doesn't drop by much, maybe 2-3 frames if anything.
 

Tomodachi

Member
Aurarian said:
I notice a lot of stuttering(don't know if that's the right word for it) when I have DXtory enabled. Like I'll be going around town and then it'll drop a couple of frames with the autosave icon in the background even though it's not autosaving. Sometimes, it'll go down to 17-18 before it comes back to 30 and it does this constantly in the same area I'm in. I was hoping for consistency but that doesn't look likely even though I know my machine can handle ultra spec @30FPS minus Motion blur/Cinematic DOF. When I use MSI afterburner, It's mostly hovering at 30-45(outside) and 50-60(inside). I rarely see it drop below 30 unless it's a cutscene but it doesn't drop by much, maybe 2-3 frames if anything.
That's weird, it's always 30fps rock solid when I'm using it (and I have a geforce MSI card too). If the only problem with fps limiter is that it won't show the fps counter you could always use fraps for that while continuing to use fps limiter to limit the framerate to 30. Unfortunately I don't know any other fps limiting software, sorry :(
 

mileS

Member
So I've been trying to update the GOG version with the patcher file from their site.. keeps getting stuck @ 15% through decompressing data near the end.

Going to try downloading the 1.35>2.0 Patch directly from the official website to see if that works. Hopefully its not messed up after trying to patch it twice the other way first and failing.

*edit* well never mind, apparently the decompressing just takes FOREVER.
 

nib95

Banned
Guys, my cousin is having a problem with Witcher 2 in which he claims all the water in the game (sea etc) is all purple and flashing. Not sure it's a GPU problem as nothing else is affected but water. Nor in other games either.

Any ideas as to what it could be? He's using a 6970.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
nib95 said:
Guys, my cousin is having a problem with Witcher 2 in which he claims all the water in the game (sea etc) is all purple and flashing. Not sure it's a GPU problem as nothing else is affected but water. Nor in other games either.

Any ideas as to what it could be? He's using a 6970.

This sounds most likely, it's beyond me why people would use a texture pack on this beautiful game.
 
So I am at the
Dragon
boss, but the fire ring nearest to the stairs is causing my system to chug like crazy (not sure of the exact FPS drop). The game has been perfect so far. I am playing at Ultra without Ubersampling, 1080p on a i7 2600k and 570 GTX. Should I turn down any specific setting to get this playable?

Also, not sure if I can discuss this here, but any tips on how to beat this asshole? :)
 

cyen

Member
HowardRoark said:
So I am at the
Dragon
boss, but the fire ring nearest to the stairs is causing my system to chug like crazy (not sure of the exact FPS drop). The game has been perfect so far. I am playing at Ultra without Ubersampling, 1080p on a i7 2600k and 570 GTX. Should I turn down any specific setting to get this playable?

Also, not sure if I can discuss this here, but any tips on how to beat this asshole? :)

I have basically the same rig (580 instead of a 570, performance not that different anyway) and a i don't remember having a huge fps drop in that area, it has a little fps drop but not something below 30fps i think.
 
cyen said:
I have basically the same rig (580 instead of a 570, performance not that different anyway) and a i don't remember having a huge fps drop in that area, it has a little fps drop but not something below 30fps i think.

Yeah, something is probably wrong here. I'm thinking I should maybe drop down the resolution, AA and AF just to get past this part. Like I said, everywhere else had a good framerate.
 

Thrakier

Member
Hello,

I've got some problems with the game:

i52400
6850 @950/1100
8 GB RAM

First of all, I think it's kinda ugly. It actually looks like a Unreal Engine game. It's very very harsh on contrast and sharpness and just not pleasing to the eye. But I think that's a engine "problem"?

Whatever. I don't get stable 60FPS @1080p. This normally shouldn't be a problem but I have a feeling that it affects the animation system. The animation is bad per se but it gets quite jittery and when panning the camera around I get some jumps and stuttering sometimes besides that the framerate never drops below 30. Any tips?

Scaling down to 720p makes this a stable 60FPS. Is there any difference playing this one @720p compared to console games @720p? My PC is connected to my TV. One thing I noticed...everything gets quite a bit "bigger".

EDIT:

My game stutters kinda like this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ25xqxCBDc

It's almsot fixed (aka much better) @720p.
 

Thrakier

Member
So...did some further testing. Some questions:

1. Why is that I have to use some weird korean/chinese whatever tool to limit my frames. In all this years no one came up with a proper solution?

2. I'm limiting my frames to 30. This only works with Vsync enabled AND this weird tool. Only Vsync or only tool means that I'm between 40 and 50 most of the time with dips to 30 and 60.

3. Without Vsync or tool I get hefty microstuttering. @30FPS is pretty smoot (30FS smoot that is). Any explanations/solutions on tha tmatter?
 

XtremeRampage

Neo Member
Thrakier said:
Is this thread dead? Should I use the OT?
Not sure. People are probably busy playing other games now.

Anyway, I'm not sure what's the root of the problem in your Witcher 2. But, have you tried changing some (graphic) settings and notice any differences?
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Thrakier said:
Is this thread dead? Should I use the OT?

It's died down tremendously since release (as to be expected), since most people have moved on. The game does have a "sharp" look to it, I generally prefer it myself, but there's a bit of discussion on this page on how to disable it. Your stuttering problems sound like you just need v-sync. If that is the case, I'd recommend using the D3DOverrider tool (with triple buffering enabled) w/ TW2, it works very well. It'll probably get rid of stuttering and let you enjoy 45+ fps as you enjoy 60 fps.

Short of that, disabling a few graphic settings is your best bet. Obviously you have uber disabled, but I'd recommend disabling Bloom as well if you haven't, it'll grab you a nice boost and the graphics generally look better without it anyway (doubly so, since you're complaining about the overly-dramatic contrast). Your card is a bit below what's needed to max the game at 60fps, so you'll just have to lower a few things to your liking. There's explanations of what stuff does in the OP, you can try disabling motion blur or DOF in addition to Bloom if need be.

As you can see earlier on this page, some GPU drivers just do not handle the shadows well at all, while on others the dithering effect is minimal.
 

kamspy

Member
Can someone point me toward the benchmark that showed the Sandy Bridge CPUs giving a performance increase over similarly clocked AMDs and older i7s?
 
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